Fighting to the End

by C Christine Fair

  10. There were media reports in 2013 about a newer Green Book. Indeed, a Green Book 2011 has been released, which I obtained after this book was largely written. Thus I was unable to incorporate insights from that volume.

  Chapter 7

  1 Unfortunately, there are too few sources of data to include Pakistan’s relations with Saudi Arabia in this volume. Pakistan’s defense literature is surprisingly silent about the important partnership with Saudi Arabia, with the exception of anodyne references to the “Muslim world.” See, e.g., El-Edroos’ (1974) argument that Pakistan should enhance “cooperation with Arab states” because “the protective political and economic umbrella thus provided by the People’s Republic of China and the world of Islam should permit Pakistan to concentrate on its own urgent and pressing political, economic and social problems” (32–33).

  2. These various agreements were in fact conceptually linked. In forging the defense pact between Pakistan and Turkey (which laid the foundation for the Baghdad Pact/CENTO), the British and Americans aimed to link Turkey, the southernmost member of NATO, with Pakistan, the westernmost member of SEATO (US Department of State, Office of the Historian, n.d.).

  3. Kashmir was infiltrated by Pakistani irregulars, who were trained and supported by the Pakistan Army (see Chapter 6).

  4. According to Article 4, paragraph 1 of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, “Each party recognizes that aggression by means of armed attack in the treaty area against any of the parties or against any state or territory which the parties by unanimous agreement may hereafter designate, would endanger its own peace and safety, and agrees that it will in that event act to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional processes. Measures taken under this paragraph shall be immediately reported to the Security Council of the United Nations” (Text of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty 1954, 618). For a Pakistani assessment of the costs and benefits to Pakistan from joining SEATO, see “SEATO and Pakistan” (1954).

  5. I have personal experience with this dynamic. During summer 2010, while I was teaching in Lahore, I was invited to appear on CNBC Pakistan. The interview was in both Urdu and English, and the topic was US–Pakistan relations. When asked why the United States can’t “be a friend like China,” I playfully responded: “You mean provide you with loans not grants, subpar conventional equipment, fail to support you in any war with India. …” The otherwise congenial presenter cut off the live interview in midsentence and went to commercial break. I was explicitly told that I could not discuss China in such terms. The unwillingness to challenge the military’s narrative was surprising given that CNBC is a private station.

  Chapter 8

  1 Khan (2012a) offers the richest and most detailed accounts of Pakistan’s nuclear program from its inception under Bhutto to the present. Ironically, while Khan seeks to undermine the popular contention that Pakistan acquired its nuclear program through theft and espionage, the details he provides of the extensive transfers of material and assistance from China among other sources undermine this contention mightily. For a critique of the historical interventions Khan attempts, see Fair (2013).

  2. The Symington Amendment was adopted in 1976 to amend the Arms Export Control Act, which was previously known as Section 669 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. This legislation prohibits US assistance to any country found to be trafficking in either nuclear enrichment technology or equipment. In contrast to Pakistani arguments that this legislation was promulgated to punish Pakistan, it was actually enacted in response to the Indian test in 1974.

  3. Locks are used to prevent unauthorized activation of a nuclear weapon. Until the 1960s, mechanical combination locks were used. Since then, permissive action links (PAL), electronic devices requiring operators to enter the correct codes, have increasingly been used. Typically, a two-person rule is employed, requiring two different codes to be entered either simultaneously or nearly so. This rule makes it nearly impossible for a weapon to be detonated by one individual. For more details on PALs and the two-person rule, among other aspects of nuclear command and control, see Feaver (1992–1993).

  4. Because the adversaries’ conventional forces may confound analysis of how nuclear weapons shape conflict proneness, he also controls for the conventional capabilities of both adversaries in the time series. He finds that the ratio of conventional forces remain more or less constant and thus cannot explain variation in conflict proneness over the same period (Kapur 2007, 20–22).

  5. For example, if a conflict began in May 1999 and ended in July 1999, Kapur counted this conflict as lasting three dispute months. If the dispute began and ended in one month, that conflict would be counted as lasting one dispute month.

  6. For analytical purposes, Kapur (2007) defines the nonnuclear period as lasting through 1989. The covert nuclear period, in his analysis, begins with the sanctions leveled against Pakistan in 1990 and extends up to the month preceding the May 1998 nuclear tests. The overt period spans May 1998 through October 2002, the last month in his dataset. Kapur performs a number of statistical tests of the data. He holds the conventional force ratios constant because he finds that, while the conventional abilities of both combatants fluctuated over time, their relative force ratios fluctuated very little. First, he examines the correlation between conventional stability and nuclear proliferation using two simple statistical tests. He cross-tabulates the nuclear proliferation status of the period in question against the tally of dispute months. For purposes of analytical ease, he defines the nuclear period as spanning 1990 through 2002, which includes both the overt and covert periods and the nonnuclear period as spanning 1972–1989. He uses a chi-square test to evaluate whether or not this distribution is significantly different from a random distribution. He finds that the expected relationship holds: the nuclear period accounts for nearly 80 percent of all dispute months, while 83 percent of all peace months occurred in the nonnuclear period. Kapur calculates the conflict rate for each period, defined by the number of conflict months divided by the total number of months in the respective period. During the nonnuclear period, the conflict rate was 0.139, compared with 0.756 in what he codes as the nuclear period. Kapur also calculates the conflict rate for all three periods, finding that the conflict rate was 0.14 in the nonnuclear phase; 0.72 during the covert period; and 0.82 during the overt nuclear period (23). Using the chi-square test, he finds that his cross-tabulations of nuclear status (nuclear vs. nonnuclear) against peace and dispute months were statistically significant at the 0.001 level. (In other words, the likelihood that this distribution occurred due to chance was less than 1 in 1,000). Notably, Pakistan was responsible for two-thirds of the militarized dispute months in this period (99 of 148 dispute months between 1972 and 2002), and in each case Pakistan’s goals were revisionist. Kapur concedes that there are likely other, nonnuclear factors driving these results and cautiously suggests that nuclearization is only one “variable facilitating increased conflict in South Asia” (29).

  7. Those sanctions were waived throughout the 1980s due to American national security priorities, not because Pakistan had made any significant reversal of its program. Thus, when the United States imposed sanctions in 1990, it was in fact reimposing many of the sanctions that had been suspended or waived since April 1979. As discussed already, the US decision to ignore Pakistan’s proliferation was the result of a calculated decision on the part of first the Carter and then the Reagan Administration. Both presidents believed that nonproliferation goals were less important than ousting the Soviets from Afghanistan. The decision to finally reimpose proliferation-related sanctions on Pakistan in 1990 thus was more the result of evolving US security requirements than of a changed assessment of Pakistan’s nuclear program. This history makes clear that an argument can be made that Pakistan’s effort to develop nuclear weapons began to influence Indian and Pakistani behavior long before 1990. Second, Kapur does not contend with the growing Pakistan-sponsored violence in India throughout the
1980s, particularly in the Punjab, where Sikh separatists fought to establish the independent Sikh state of Khalistan. Yet it is well-known that Pakistan’s involvement in the Punjab insurgency was extensive, as demonstrated by the fact that the violence in the Punjab was most intense along the border (Fair 2004a, 2007, 2009a).

  8. Note that Kapur’s coding produces a conflict rate that is a full order of magnitude higher than the conflict rate for my nonnuclear period. Kapur’s conflict rate for his combined nuclear periods (1990–2008) is 0.756; 0.72 for the covert period of 1990–1998; and 0.82 for 1998–2002. Comparing these conflict rates, it is obvious that the most important analytical difference is how Kapur and I define the nonnuclear period, and the results of our respective efforts are strikingly different. The statistical analysis I present here provides evidence to support the argument that the nonnuclear period should be defined more restrictively.

  Chapter 9

  1 The 2006 edition of the Pakistan Army Green Book, which is dedicated to terrorism, focuses on Pakistan’s domestic security challenges. It alleges, however, that India, and sometimes even the United States, are behind the intense terrorist violence in Pakistan.

  2. This section is drawn from Fair (2011b) with the permission of Asia Policy.

  3. Many of these groups have been proscribed numerous times only to reemerge and operate under new names. Rather than employing the most current names under which they operate, I use the names that are likely to be most familiar to readers.

  4. One long-time observer of militancy in Pakistan, Mariam Abou-Zahab, strongly discounts the claim that the TTP is a coherent alliance. She argues that the group’s constituent parts are driven by local factors and constrained, in good measure, by tribal boundaries that circumscribe the leadership. Thus, she discounts the claim that the TTP is a coherent organization running the length and width of the Pakhtun belt. This view has been buttressed by my own field interviews in Pakistan in February and April 2009 and later.

  5. Author discussions with US military, state, and intelligence officials throughout 2010 and earlier as well as with Indian intelligence officials in April 2010.

  6. This section reproduces and expands upon Fair (2011a).

  7. This paragraph draws primarily on my extensive fieldwork in Pakistan. Since December 1999, I have undertaken numerous research trips to Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, and Bangladesh to study Lashkar-e-Taiba and other militant organizations based in and operating out of Pakistan.

  8. All translations by me.

  9. The Quran is a book that compiles the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad as received by Allah and is thus a book of divine revelations. The Sunnah, derived from exegetical scholarship on the Quran, details the teachings and practices of Muhammad, which serve as a model for human conduct. Hadis is similar to the Sunnah but not identical to it. Hadis is a narration about the life of the Prophet.

  10. Some obligations (kifaya) are not compulsory but merely recommended and can be obviated by other conditions (e.g., if others in the Muslim community are doing this already). In contrast, according to the manifesto, farz-e-ein means something that one must do. This definition is in fact debated by scholars of Islam and in particular by the Islamic scholars (ulema) belonging to Ahl-e-Hadith, the religious tradition from which Lashkar-e-Taiba emerged.

  11. There are no reliable estimates for this. The census does not inquire of such things. Some surveys have included questions about confessional beliefs, but respondents may not answer such sensitive questions truthfully. C. Christine Fair, Neil Malhotra, and Jacob N. Shapiro, drawing from a nationally representative survey of 6,000 Pakistanis, report that 8 percent of the respondents said that they were Ahl-e-Hadith (Fair et al. 2010).

  12. Contrary to media reports, the organization was not the leader of relief efforts during these catastrophes (Andrabi and Das 2010). It is likely that elements of Pakistan’s media knowingly or unwittingly sensationalized LeT’s contribution with the outcome of fostering popular support for the organization. Many journalists are on the ISI’s payroll and routinely plant stories on behalf of the ISI or characterize a story to suit the ISI’s interests. As discussed in the beginning of this volume, Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI, has a media arm that oversees management of the Pakistani media. This bureau also monitors international coverage of Pakistan and liaises with foreign journalists and scholars working in Pakistan. This part of the ISI, along with ISPR, the army, and the Ministry of Information, facilitates travel and government meetings throughout Pakistan. Military offices provide journalists and researchers with access to the tribal areas where they can meet with military personnel engaging in operations and a host of other military and intelligence institutions in Pakistan. The military undertakes these arrangements with an expectation that journalists will report favorably in exchange for this access. Should a journalist’s account vex the military, the military curtails his or her access for a limited time or perhaps indefinitely (Chisti 2011). In extremis, the government will oust foreign journalists who persistently vex the state with their accounts or, less confrontationally, the government will refuse to renew their visas when they expire. Pakistani journalists face more dire consequences: the threat of harm to themselves or to their families. Other journalists with whom I have interacted over the years report that the “agencies” can even force the papers to fire someone should their reporting prove problematic for the military and intelligence agencies. It should be noted that the ISI and the military are not the only entities interested in controlling reportage; the civilian political parties are also equally vested. While this multi-actor system can not control all reporting absolutely, it does pose significant constraints upon foreign and domestic journalists who undermine state narratives.

  Chapter 10

  1 Zardari’s five-year tenure as president was set to end in September 2013. The parliament and provincial assemblies, which make up Pakistan’s Electoral College, are required to elect a new president one month prior to the expiration of the president’s term. Initially the election date was set for August 6, 2013. However, this date was too close to the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr following Ramadan, the month of fasting. Thus, many of the voters would not have been able to participate. The Supreme Court ruled on July 24, 2013 to advance the elections to July 30, 2013. The PPP complained that it would not be possible to field a candidate with so little preparation time. The PPP announced its plans to boycott the election and the Awami National League choice to join (Pakistan Express Tribune 2013).

  2. This section draws from my forthcoming work (Fair 2014).

  3. I labeled those whose mother tongue is Punjabi as ethnically Punjabi. Respondents with any other mother tongue were coded as non-Punjabi.

  Chapter 11

  1. Comments from Amb. Husain Haqqani sent via email to the author on April 30, 2013.

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